


No Man is an Island

by fencer_x



Category: No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-18
Updated: 2011-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:29:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencer_x/pseuds/fencer_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[SPOILERS for entire series] It's been 4 years, 22 days, 5 hours, and 21 minutes since the last time he kissed Nezumi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Man is an Island

It's a Tuesday night when Nezumi returns.

The sun set a good hour ago, and Karan has already gone upstairs to prepare for bed; the shop is closed, but Shion is still hunched over a small table going over the menu for the next week's deliveries and showcase pieces, jotting down notes of ingredients to purchase in a rough scrawl that only he can read.

He's good at things like this--numbers and organizing and calculating. Years of helping out his mother with her bakery coupled with a few frantic months of trips to sleazy marketplaces and haggling over expired food has imbued in Shion a sense of domesticity, homeliness, and he finds a calm worthiness in making this business as successful as it can be. He has a place in this world post-No. 6, helping rebuild everything into not just a mere shadow of its former glory, but something more real and honest that he and Karan and all the residents of Chronos, Lost Town, West Block could be proud to call their community. Four years out, there is still far more work to do than accomplished, but...time marches on, as it always has. Not today, not tomorrow, but some day there will be peace again. For now, he has to remember to replace the loose screws in the butter churner and try to track down 10 kilos of brown sugar, if such a thing exists still here. Perhaps Rikiga-san can put him in contact with an importer, if not.

He's turned off the outside lights, leaving lit only a small lamp overhanging the entrance just in case, and of course the table lamp he's set up by the register while he reviews the list he's made, frowning and chewing on the end of his pencil while he tries to figure out why it feels like he's forgetting something.

Ah, right. The caraway stocks are low.

He startles when there's a sharp knock at the door and casts a glance across the empty bakery, the bare shelves a reminder of the work waiting in the morning and the successful day they've had today; weekdays are usually slow, particularly in the evening, but today was a good day despite the dreary Spring storm that's turned into a cold but constant drizzle now.

He can make out a person's figure outlined against the shaded glass of the door, backlit by the dim overhead light hanging above the entrance. They shuffle from one foot to the other, hands stuffed in their pocket against the chill likely, and don't appear to be taking the hint that the bakery is closed for the evening. Shion calls out an apology cautiously, "We're closed for the day--we'll open again in the morning. Nine o'clock."

There's a pause, and the person has stopped their shuffling, outline going stiff and still, and Shion slowly shifts his chair backwards, standing in case...well, just in case. He hasn't been able to stop the way his blood runs a little hotter at the threat of action; maybe he's always had it in him, now that he thinks about it. Nezumi used to tell him he got this _look_ on his face at the oddest, most inappropriate times: a look of glee, excitement, frightening almost in the way he looked forward to a chase or a fight or any threat bearing down on him. He supposes it comes from being repressed for so long, like a slingshot finally loosed, and he overshot _prepared_ and was flung squarely into _batshit insane_ when he broke free of No. 6. Even back here now, sequestered in a tiny bakery with his mother bedding down for the evening upstairs and a pile of receipts that needed filing just to his right, he still can't help almost _hoping_ for trouble to come find him again, for something to shake him out of his mundane life and drag him off on some fantastic adventure that will be neither fantastic nor adventurous but draining and frightening and wind up leaving him feeling emptier than before...

It's a rather fucked up dream, he knows, but he's long stopped denying it. There are lots of things he's stopped denying--especially here in the lonely quiet of early evening.

He tries again when the shadow doesn't move. "The shop's closed for the day; you'll have to come back tomorrow."

The person's shoulders slump, and the head lifts back; he can practically hear them taking a deep breath. "I'd like a slice of cherry cake." The voice is muffled through the door--but it's unmistakeably a young man's. He sounds...amused, almost. He's probably drunk; one of the locals or a transient former resident of West Block, making the rounds to find a place to make himself comfortable for the evening. When Shion doesn't respond quickly enough, he adds, "I've heard it's great here."

Shion stalks forward, keeping his voice just loud enough to be heard by their unwanted visitor; he doesn't want to rouse his mother, and it's better if she doesn't even know how Shion turns away the riffraff that occasionally drop by the bakery after nightfall. "Thanks very much for the compliment; we'll be glad to set aside a piece for you--in the morning." He checks the chain and deadbolt, just in case. "But please leave for now, or I'll have to--"

"Shion."

He freezes, stomach churning violently, and his breathing catches. Time slows to a crawl--cliche as in any of the books he pored over in the bunker deep underground in West Block--and his vision swims before him, the stranger's outline blurring with the pool of yellow light illuminating him and massing and gelling into a soft mottled _gray_ \--

There's heat behind his eyes and he can feel a heaviness in his throat, but he ignores it all as his trembling fingers fly over the complicated locks, twisting the bolt sharply and cutting his finger on the metal of the chain as he tries--twice--to unlatch everything, nearly pulling the knob from its socket as he jerks the door open.

The rain may as well have stopped, time's going so slowly. He can practically see each individual droplet dripping from the eaves, the sign board, the ferns hanging along the front window, bouncing melodically against the pavement in a chorus of _tink tink tink_ , like the topmost keys on a piano with rats scurrying across them in the morning and filling the air with a discordant concerto.

He doesn't know how long he stands there staring, mouth half-open and heart in his throat rather than in his chest where it should be, pumping blood to his lifeless limbs--only that at some point, Nezumi cocks his head to the side and says, "...Air-headed as always. I could've been anyone."

And that familiar lecture, in that familiar voice, from those familiar ( _so familiar_ ) lips--is enough to do Shion in. He launches forward and wraps both arms tight around Nezumi's neck, oblivious to the fact that he's practically soaked through and the eave he's standing under isn't giving much protection from the drizzle. Nezumi grunts uncomfortably in his ear, and Shion realizes somewhere that the hug is probably painful, but that just makes him squeeze tighter. This could be a dream--this could be a hallucination; he doesn't really care, but he's damn well going to enjoy it while he can, and tries to meld their bodies into one, as if convinced he might could carry on a little longer if he can hide Nezumi away within himself.

But the longer he holds on, the warmer Nezumi's body feels against him, the chillier the rain soaking through his sleeves, the more comforting and familiar the hands that tentatively rub his back, the fingers that thread through his hair with a gentleness that belies the desperate measures he knows those hands to have taken. Shion's face is buried into the crook of this vision's neck, and when he breathes in (when he finally _can_ breathe again), it smells of rain and wide open spaces and dirt and trees and the road, but it still somehow coalesces into a scent that's unmistakeably--"Nezumi...?"

Nezumi chuckles roughly, voice a bit drawn and breathy from being crushed. "I--should hope so. Or you're gonna have some explaining to do."

Shion immediately pulls back, bracing his hands on Nezumi's shoulders; he'll give him space to breathe, but not to run. Not to leave. _Not again dammit_. "S-sorry. I just..." And he stops himself from apologizing anymore, because he's not sorry at all, and now is _not_ the time to be lying. "It's...you?"

Nezumi shrugs. "I wanted to make an entrance."

It's _so Nezumi_ , so like him to always just breeze in like a strong wind and buffet Shion about. Shion's grip grows strong against Nezumi's shoulders, fingers digging into the strong, taught muscles beneath layers of soaked clothing, and he feels his knees about to give way. "...Please, come in."

* * *

"I've gotten taller."

It's the first thing that he blurts out after he's prepared two cups of cocoa and cleared enough space on the table for the two of them to settle in. Karan is asleep in the living room upstairs, and at least here there are chairs to sit on rather than the bags of flour in the corner of the pantry that Shion has made his room.

Nezumi's coat and muffler hang on the coat rack to dry, and a small puddle of water forms on the floor beneath them, dripping softly into the floorboards. Shion can mop it in the morning. The cocoa is warm but not too hot, and a bitter, dark chocolate cocoa flavor that he hopes suits Nezumi's taste now as much as the overly sweetened cocoa did when they were young. __

When they were young. It feels...strange to think in those terms now. Memories are supposed to be things that fade with time, but in his mind Nezumi has always been this stark, clear contrasting character, whose form and fashion only grew clearer with the passing years, until Shion sometimes thought he remembered Nezumi better now than he ever did when they were together. He remembers things like--the dullness in his eyes that wouldn't catch fire until he'd had a shower and bitter, burning coffee in the mornings; the way his head listed to the left when he read in bed, gravity sometimes pulling him down to rest against Shion's shoulder; the gentle frailty that seemed to cling to him despite his every outward appearance of being completely and utterly in control of himself, a weak crack oddly juxtaposed against his broad shoulders and lean muscles and sturdy frame.

Shion remembers all of these things and tries to find them again, seeking them out in the low light and failing to find them, leaving him wondering if they ever even existed in the first place or if he perhaps had made them all up in his head, his fragile mind trying to fill in the blanks left by an unforgettable, unforgivable existence.

"...I noticed."

Shion smiles softly and takes a sip of his cocoa. "You can't look down on me anymore."

"I can't look down on you as _much_. That's all." He swirls the contents of his mug. "You still haven't learned."

"What?"

"Not to open the door 'til you've made sure who's on the other side."

"You think I wouldn't recognize you? Wouldn't recognize my own name coming from you?"

Nezumi sets the mug down softly, brushing a strand of his hair behind his ears with a short sigh. Shion only now notices that Nezumi hasn't changed his hair style. It's the same length, the same upswept gathering as he remembers, as he sees almost every night when he closes his eyes and relives one of those heady hundred or so days he can never go back to. It's strange--isn't it? That in four years he hasn't grown it out or cut it or styled it in some fashion that perhaps might have suited his traveling lifestyle better than his stage persona.

Maybe he really _was_ worried. That Shion wouldn't recognize him.

"Well, I guess you can afford to be a little more relaxed here now. You're helping at the bakery?" A nod. "Mama's boy."

"You obviously knew where to find me; don't act so surprised."

Nezumi leans forward onto the table, supporting his chin in one hand and narrowing his eyes to little knowing slits. "Thought I'd drop in and find a grandkid or three running around."

Shion frowns, brows furrowing. "I'm only 20. You haven't been gone that long."

Nezumi's raises his brows, snorting. "Oh, I haven't? Should I have waited longer, perhaps, Your Maj--"

"No." Shion's voice is strained and almost a whisper, and his shoulders are shaking where he sits hunched over his mug, knuckles white. He's like a man who was dying of thirst in the desert and has just gotten a drop of water into his parched throat; maybe he could've gone on, could've carried forth a bit longer, maybe. But now that he's tasted life, tasted release--he can't bear to consider how it might have been if he hadn't answered the door. If he'd passed Nezumi off as a drunk passer-by and turned off the lamp, scaled the steps, kissed his mother on the cheek goodnight, and retreated into himself. "Please, no."

Nezumi sighs loudly. "...You gonna cry?" It used to annoy Shion, being coddled and teased this way--made to feel like a child when he's probably only a few months younger than Nezumi in the first place. But he's older now, and wiser he hopes, and there are four years Nezumi doesn't know about him. And he hates that--hates it so much that yes, fine, he wants to cry.

Instead, though, he shakes his head violently and shoves his chair back, grabbing Nezumi's mug without asking if he's finished and setting them as gently as he can in his hurried state into the sink, running a bit of water into them to soak. He douses the lamp, plunging the room into darkness, and before Nezumi can voice his confusion, he grabs his hand and jerks him towards the stairs, muttering to him to keep his voice down.

His mother is asleep; she's always been the _early to bed, early to rise_ type, and tonight is no different. He places a finger to his lips, and Nezumi returns a nod. He probably wants to know what Shion's doing dragging him around like this, but he at least understands the value of prudence and discretion, and the importance of time and place.

Shion understands the importance of time and place as well--that's why he's doing this.

"...Quite a step down from your fancy digs in Chronos," Nezumi comments with a smile, running a finger over a shelf and flicking away the dust that accumulates on it with a sniff. "Bet you'll think twice before picking up a VC next time." Shion doesn't respond--doesn't laugh, doesn't snicker, doesn't make one of his satisfied contented little grunts even. Mostly because he is busy trying to unbutton his shirt with hands that won't stop shaking. "...Oi, Shion?"

He closes his eyes and lets Nezumi's voice wash over him. He doesn't care about the context, doesn't care about the tone, doesn't care about the words: he only cares that it is _Nezumi's voice_ , filling the air in this place where he has never been before and giving Shion something new to hold on to. If in the future they should be separated again--and they will be, he can _feel_ it, could feel Nezumi pulling away before he stepped over the threshold--he can come into this room, can take a deep breath, and know that it is a breath he's sharing with Nezumi.

Chilled hands close over his own and steady them, and a calloused thumb rubs over his knuckles. "...What're you doing, Shion?" It isn't so much a question as patronizing rhetoric, and even with his eyes closed, he can tell Nezumi is smiling softly and fighting rolling his eyes. He wishes he had the strength to look at him right now--but he's doing his level best to just keep from shoving Nezumi away and ripping the buttons open himself. "Going to bed already? We were just getting caught--"

"I'm not going to sleep," Shion snaps, shaking his wrist to throw off Nezumi's grip on him, and he goes back to his buttons, fingers suddenly less sweaty and fumbling such that his topmost button slips free rather easily, with successive ones following suit until he's able to shrug out of his shirt, letting it fall to the floor where it will. He strips off the undershirt as well and shivers in the darkness, feeling exposed to more than just the elements before reminding himself that years from now, he doesn't want to look back on this moment with regret.

Four years is a long time. Not unbearable--but long, and Shion has not wasted this second chance. He has not spent the last four years feeling sorry for himself, turning in on himself and muttering Nezumi's name at odd intervals, worrying his mother like before. Indeed--he hasn't let Nezumi's name leave his lips since his mother asked him (once and only once) if Shion wouldn't be going with 'Nezumi-san'. Shion hadn't been able to bring himself to tell her _he didn't give me a choice_.

But those four years are over, and a new clock is ticking now. Shion can feel it in his chest, his stomach, just behind his navel, between his legs. He is every inch of him acutely aware of Nezumi now, in every respect; the hair on his arms is standing on end, and he can practically feel his hair waxing whiter in the moonlight, a compliment to Nezumi's dark eyes.

He reaches for the zip on his pants, swallowing his nerves, and hastily unsnaps the buttons before he is again stopped by hands on top of his own and a voice hissing in his ear for him to stop. He tries to shake Nezumi off, taking a step back, but then Nezumi has one hand on his waist and the other gripped talon tight around his wrist, holding him fast. "What the hell are you doing?"

Shion is silent, waiting for his blush to die down, and even though there isn't much light in the room, he can practically feel himself glowing with shame. "What's it look like?"

"It looks like you're about to try something stupid."

"It's not something stupid."

"Well I wouldn't call it _smart_ at least."

Shion snorts. "Smart? I'd be an idiot _not_ to do it now. You might run off again and I'll have to wait another four years." He manages to force his chin up, nearly overshooting after realizing he doesn't have to crane his neck up at as sharp an angle as before anymore. He hopes his gaze is hard and unforgiving; maybe he's learned something about acting from Nezumi finally. "...It'd help if you were naked, too."

Nezumi's brows furrow, and for one brief, horrified moment, Shion thinks that maybe he has made an _exceedingly_ poor error in judgement and that this moment, this _thing_ that he's been waiting for, expecting for four years--has all been in his head, yet another rose-colored memory embellished between the pages of fairy tales and poetic sap.

But then Nezumi breathes out through his nose in resignation and shakes his head, releasing Shion from his grip and taking a step back--only to tug at the hem of his shirt and pull both layers off in one smooth motion, revealing sun-darkened skin that is marked with more scars than Shion remembers but is just as tight and smooth and flat where it should be. He wants to reach out and spread his palm across it again, to have Nezumi remind him _sorry I don't have boobs_. He smiles at the memory, and Nezumi takes it for commentary. "Like you're one to make remarks." He pokes at what Shion has been denying is evidence of too many mornings spent sampling his mother's wares. "You definitely can't get naked in front of your lover with that much pudge."

Shion slaps his hand away, feeling self-conscious for the first time and ashamed he hadn't actually considered that while Nezumi has always been tall and brash and bold and beautiful, Shion has nothing of merit to offer but some strangely colored hair and what his mother reminds him is a 'cute face'. He's nothing to look at, has already started to succumb to the waistline-expanding effects of a life spent in relative ease, and _god_ how has this never come up before in all of the hundreds of ways he's envisioned this going down?

Nezumi is laughing, voice a soft, rough chuckle as he remains conscious of Karan in the other room, and he steps forward to hook his fingers into Shion's belt loops and pull their bodies together. He ducks down--less a feat than before--and presses their foreheads together. " _I_ don't mind though."

And Shion can't bear being this close anymore, not without doing _something_ , not with Nezumi's lips tickling against his nose, his cheek with each breath and his eyes big and bright and staring into Shion until he thinks they'll be burned into his retinas and he'll wander around forevermore with _pretty gray eyes_ stamped into his vision. There are worse ways to live, he thinks.

He licks his lips and cocks his head just to the side, just to find that perfect angle he's always known existed between himself and Nezumi, that angle that when Shion looked up and Nezumi looked down would form a straight line, like they were mathematically _perfect_ for each other that way. Nezumi still hangs back, though, won't quite close the distance that's parted them for _four years_ , and Shion regrets having to do this but Nezumi just isn't playing fair, and he whines desperately, "Nezumi, _please_..." Which does just the trick.

It's been 4 years, 22 days, 5 hours, and 21 minutes since the last time he kissed Nezumi. And Nezumi has learned a _lot_ in that time. Or perhaps, what does Shion know--maybe he's always been this amazing, always been good enough to make a prostitute blush, and he'd just held himself back with Shion, or never been able to be serious with Shion. Whatever the reason, Shion thinks for a brief flash that _this was definitely worth the wait_ , just before Nezumi braces a leg between Shion's and uses it for leverage to ease him backwards towards the low, homely little bed that Shion sleeps on. It's a single, just like Nezumi's, but everything feels bigger without another person sharing it--even if that other person has extremely bad sleeping habits and Shion had spent half his nights somehow half-in the bed, half-out.

The kiss is messy and wet and sloppy, but Shion doesn't so much mind that as he's somewhat preoccupied with keeping himself from moaning too loudly or coming too quickly, because Nezumi doesn't seem too inclined to take responsibility for either himself. His breath is coming in quick, short pants coupled with whining little entreaties, and he does his level best to mimic the stroking and sucking that Nezumi seems to accomplish with aplomb, as if he's kissed the living daylights out of Shion on any number of occasions before and this is all just _business as usual_. He doesn't know what to do with his hands, eventually tucking them underneath Nezumi's arms and bringing them back around to grab onto Nezumi's shoulders, sending the both of them toppling backwards onto Shion's bed. Nezumi breaks the kiss with a soft _oof_ and pulls back, licking his lips and staring down at Shion, wide-eyed, very obviously trying to get a read on the situation. "...What are we doing?"

Shion tries to keep a straight face. "Well, when two people love each other very much--"

Nezumi punches the pillow by his head, leaning down until they're almost nose to nose, and his eyes have that glint to them that they always took on whenever Shion tried to pull him closer, tried to dig deeper and link the two of them more closely and Nezumi patently did _not_ want that. As if he knew that the more he gave in to Shion, the more difficult it would be to pull away. A survival mechanism of the most _heart-breaking_ sort. "Don't fuck with me, Shion. Do you even know why I'm here?"

Did he? Of course not. He'd never asked. He'd never assumed. Because--"I don't care." Four years after making that promise, and he is still _not lying_. "I don't care why you're here. It's enough that you _are_." He lifts onto his elbows and stares up when Nezumi pulls away so they don't bump noses. "I just...before anything else, I need to have you."

Nezumi's frown is resolute, tinged with sadness, and Shion only now notices how Nezumi's travels have obviously weighed on him. He has no idea what Nezumi has been doing all this time, just as Nezumi has no idea what he's been doing. They're virtual strangers now, and while that should be frightening beyond anything, to even consider doing something like this with a person he may not even know anymore, it somehow isn't. Even with a knife at his throat, he was never _afraid_  of Nezumi. The knife is back now, simply altered in substance and wielded in a different manner; but Shion's resolve has not wavered remotely.

"...You never lost me, idiot." His voice sounds strained, and breaks on the endearment.

Shion gropes in the darkness until his fingers find one of Nezumi's hands, and he tugs gently to pull him back down. "Then why does it feel like I just found you?"

It's not everything Shion ever wanted, but it's all he can hope for right now. He's eager, and Nezumi is skilled--and these things work in harmony to bring pleasure where there might otherwise have been none. It's fast and muffled, cramped and more painful than he expected, but all of these sensations pale in the face of finally achieving a resolution to years spent wondering what he might have ever had with Nezumi if things had turned out differently. Kisses not just being for saying goodbye or pledging an oath, fingers flowing through hair or cupped under a chin not out of idle curiosity or to deliver a lecture, heavy breathing and sweat-slicked skin not from a hard day's work--four years has been time enough to reflect on all of these _if only_ s, and when Nezumi presses into him, when he breathes Shion's name hard and heavy into his ear, when the room is filled with soft grunts and bitten back cries and the light slap of flesh coming together in arrhythmic spurts, it somehow feels like they've finally come full circle. Like everything had been leading up to this; it was only a matter of _time_.

The room is chilly, drawing goosebumps in their flesh and forcing them under the covers and closer to one another to conserve heat. The night temperatures still dip near to freezing, and Shion is grateful for more reasons than one that Nezumi is here with him right now. "Living people are warm, huh?"

Shion snorts softly and draws closer, their chests brushing and sending a shiver through Shion; he wishes sex weren't so tiring. The spirit is more than willing, but the flesh... "You couldn't come back when it was warmer?"

"Then you'd be complaining about sweating too much, knowing you." Shion pinches the nearest bit of flesh he can grab in his fingers. " _Oww_ , dammit. You're the one who came on to me, you know."

Shion squirms onto his stomach and then lifts onto his elbows, cocking his head to the side and staring down at Nezumi. He swallows before confessing, "...I just missed you. A...a lot." He holds his breath when Nezumi reaches over and brushes a thumb across his cheek before threading his fingers through Shion's hair, closing his eyes and leaning into the touch. "...I missed you. So much, Nezumi."

"Don't cry, idiot."

"I'm not crying. I'm not a girl."

"You don't have to remind _me_ of that." Shion squints to keep the tears that are building up from cresting and laughs, covering his mouth with one hand. "...Shion."

Nezumi's voice has lost its mirthful edge and grown hard, serious. Solemn. Shion ignores this. "Hm?"

He pushes himself up into a seated position, letting the sheets fall to his waist and wrapping his arms around his legs to rest his head on them. "...I'm not staying, you know."

Shion's blood runs cold, and he lets himself fall slowly back onto the bed, head resting limp on his pillow. He wants something to hold--he wants some bit of Nezumi to cling to, an arm, a hand--but his arms won't move, and he feels like he's just been shot up with anesthetic, everything going still and silent and he can but watch Nezumi shatter everything he's built up in his mind about how Things would be now.

He can't tell if Nezumi is watching him or pointedly avoiding him, but his voice sounds muffled as if from far away, as if he's fighting against a current and his message is being carried off such that Shion barely catches it. "I just came to pick you up."

Shion is up sitting proper _seiza_ like he's just been jolted with lightning, and the whole bed shifts with the activity, nearly knocking Nezumi to the floor. "You--what?"

Nezumi steadies himself, pointedly looking away from Shion's nudity--whether out of politeness or for his own self-control, Shion can't tell; he hopes it's a bit of both--and grouses, "Keep it down; you want your mom to find us like this?"

"My mom likes you."

Shion's logic is, as always, without holes.

Nezumi resumes his position, resting his chin on his knees and staring straight ahead so that he can't be distracted any further. "I'm simply granting my liege's last request." It takes Shion longer than he would like to understand the cryptic message, and Nezumi continues. "If he still wants it granted, at least."

Shion opens his mouth, ready to agree in an instant--ready to drop everything and flee in the night like some pair of star-crossed lovers whom time and trial would sooner see torn asunder than allowed to live in harmony--but something holds his tongue. "...Why?"

"Hm?"

"...Why now? Why did you come back for me?" He's heard stories about gift horses and how it's not polite to look them in the mouth, but this is _too much_. Too perfect, too amazing, too long-coming, too _everything_ , and he can't help feeling like he's going to wake up in the next few minutes downstairs with a spot of drool on the inventory list and the table lamp having nearly burned down the whole wick, alone and with no late-night visitors to warm him, body and soul. "Nezumi?"

Nezumi lets his knees drop and leans forward, settling his elbows on them with his back hunched foward uncomfortably. "...You remember what I told you?"

Shion doesn't pause. "I try not to."

Nezumi snorts. "At least you're honest." He sighs. "I'm a wanderer, Shion. I can't be tied down--not by you, not by the city, not by responsibilities beyond my carrying them out, not by...not by this." He doesn't have to explain what _this_ is. "But you--you need stability. You need something still and stable and stationary and everything that I'm not. You need to come home to your mom's little bakery every night and to crawl into your bed that's less comfortable than those flour sacks over there--"

" _Hey_."

Nezumi allows a sad smile. "--and...and you need to be with someone who can give you all of that, from the bottom of their heart. And I can't do that. I can't lie to you and say I want to spend the rest of my life in a little shack two doors down from here babysitting that brat you pawned off on Inukashi and trying to figure out where the hell I belong now. Because I don't _have_ that kind of place."

"Don't _say_ that, you--"

"Would you shut up for five minutes?" Nezumi's interruption is short and annoyed, and Shion can tell even in the dim light filtering through the curtains in the room that Nezumi's worked himself up for this, so he wisely does as asked. "It's like arguing with a five-year-old." He glances at Shion to see if he'll refute this, and Shion bites his tongue quite literally to keep from rising to the challenge. Nezumi shakes his head in quiet amusement. "We're complete opposites, Shion. There isn't a damned thing about us that's the same. You're you, and I'm me, and we neither one of us can go on for long without being everything that we are through and through. So if we were together, then...we'd just be at odds all the time. Maybe not with the little things, because we can put up with each other's crap pretty well I think, but...we both know that we desire different things." He lets his gaze drop for just a moment to run over Shion's body, and he licks his lips before glancing away. "For the most part, at least."

There's a long pause, and Shion weighs opening his mouth again. When Nezumi balks at continuing, he takes his chance: "...That certainly doesn't sound like you're asking me to leave everything I have here and go with you."

Nezumi snorts. "I guess even an airhead could tell that, huh?" Shion frowns but doesn't press the matter. "The thing is...what I know in my head...and what I know in my heart are different things."

"How poetic." Shion has mastered sarcasm, and Nezumi obviously doesn't like this development, for he shoots Shion a glare before shoving him back down onto the bed, still being careful not to knock his head against the wall, and braces himself over Shion's chest.

"I'm being serious, asshole." Shion nods, small jerks of his head. "Just...I can't do what my heart tells me, is all. I just can't. Hell--I do my damnedest to _avoid_ doing what it tells me, you know? So--I had to...think it through logically. And I figured it's boring being around people like myself all the time, even if it's safer that way." Nezumi swallows thickly, trying to keep his composure. " _'No man is an island.'_ " The quote is, unfortunately, lost on Shion, and he regrets instantly that he has spent these last years growing dull and letting the lessons he learned in the cramped confines of their apartment slip away.

He starts to apologize, genuinely contrite. "I'm--sorry, Nezumi, I don't--"

" _God_ , you're annoyingly thick. I forgot that." He breathes loudly through his nose. "I just--I realized there's such a thing as compromise. That two people can be completely wrong for each other but still...still want to be together." He flexes his arms to lean down, resting their foreheads together, and Shion freezes, half-worried that if he makes a move the moment will be broken. "You're worth it, Shion. You're worth a damned lot, you know. I just wanted to tell you that."

"...You could've told me that any time, though."

Nezumi releases the strength in his arms and flops down on his stomach, half-draped across Shion, and buries his face in the crook of Shion's neck. "...I wish it were that simple."

"It somehow never is with you."

"You've gotten a mouth on you while I've been away... I dunno if I like that." He presses a kiss to the skin just below Shion's ear, sucking just hard enough that Shion worries he'll have a mark in the morning that he'll have to explain away somehow. "I knew...if I came back, I wouldn't be able to leave you behind again. You don't have a clue how hard it was the first time." He hugs tight with the arm draped over Shion's midsection. "...But I knew I shouldn't take you away, either."

"...Then why did you come back?" They have somehow made it back to square one again; some might consider it amusing that their arguments never ended with any definitive conclusions, but Shion has always only found this frustrating. "You're not making any sense, Nezumi..." Or maybe he's making all the sense in the world and Shion is just too obtuse to figure it out.

"You're telling me," he grumbles. "Are you being this thick on purpose? Or is this just pure, unadulterated Shion?"

"What? I'm not--"

"I'm trying to _not have to say_ I love you, but you're doing a damned good job of shooting that plan to shit."

Shion's mouth forms a little 'o' of realization, and he squirms away to find Nezumi with his face buried in the pillow. "...It took you four years to realize that?"

"No."

"Then--why?"

Nezumi lifts his face, frowning. "Did you not listen to any of the stuff I told you? You had _work_ to do, responsibilities to your mother, to the city, to Safu and everything you were left. I couldn't have stayed with you, no matter how much I wanted to, but I couldn't take you away from it either."

"And yet you want to do that now?"

Nezumi grimaces, like he's just tasted something sour. "...I never said you had to come."

Shion wishes he were in a position to punch Nezumi again right now, but instead he just reaches forward and presses a bit of hair that's fallen out of its band behind his ear, realizing why Nezumi does it to Shion all the time. "...You know I will, though. You know I'll never tell you no." Nezumi closes his eyes, frown deepening in disappointment at himself. "...You're really weird."

"I don't want to hear that from you." Shion smiles enough for the both of them.

"Where will we go?"

Nezumi's eyes open a crack, and the moonlight catches in his irises, making them glow obsidian. Shion loves his eyes; he feels like he could wax poetic on them for volumes. "Somewhere that isn't here."

"That's a lot of places."

"We're young; we'll get there." He swallows a heaviness in his throat and locks eyes with Shion, tone solemn. "...Your mother..."

"Didn't I tell you? She loves you." He squirms closer, sharing breath with Nezumi when their noses almost touch. "It's not for forever though, right?"

Nezumi shakes his head. "She makes a mean cherry cake I hear."

"I can make it myself, now," Shion crows with confidence, adding as an afterthought, "...But her muffins are nice as well."

Nezumi actually laughs, rolling onto his back and rubbing a palm over his face. "Then we definitely can't stay away for too long..."

Shion finds his free hand beneath the covers and threads their fingers together, squeezing softly. "You kept your promise."

"I did."

"Make me a new one?"

Nezumi cocks his head to the side, gauging Shion's intentions out of the corner of his eye. "...What should it be?"

"Something like... _'we'll be together forever'_."

"...You'll pardon me, Your Majesty, but I do believe that has to be about the lamest, most-cliched promise I've ever heard." Shion maintains his stare, resolute, and Nezumi eventually cracks, shaking his head and sighing before leaning over and pressing a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. "Another kiss of promise."

"Have we not graduated to more explicit expressions of oath-making?"

"You're really making me regret dropping in again, you know."

Shion's bites his lip to fight back a smile. He's _missed this_ , more than Nezumi can possibly even know--and he takes pride in knowing he may now have chance to express just that. "Oh, I have not yet _begun_ to make you regret it." But they have world enough and time, now; his mother will just have to do the shopping herself.


End file.
